


darling, what did you expect?

by vvesninski



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: F/F, F/M, i know shes a lesbian but it was necessary, sorry for making carol kiss a boy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 08:31:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15626808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvesninski/pseuds/vvesninski
Summary: Her first kiss isn’t the same as her *first* kiss.





	darling, what did you expect?

**Author's Note:**

> im not sure if this is a bit out of character but honestly? i love the idea of young carol having a soft side? it probably got knocked out of her in prison but anyway. here it is. title (very loosely) from a little less sixteen candles, a little more “touch me” by fall out boy

She remembered her first kiss vividly, but not for the right reasons.

Tommy Roberts sat next to her in last period chemistry class when they were fourteen, and he was the worst lab partner ever. He was cocky and self-obsessed, and hung out with the cool kids’ group, so Carol hated him automatically. All he did was sit around and tease her, for her big glasses, her old, worn clothes, and her tendency to eat sweets rather than a proper meal every lunchtime. Carol was made to do all the work. Which she didn’t mind, really, because Tommy was even more stupid than he was annoying.

“I bet you think you’re so smart,” he would say, his feet up on her chair as she stood pouring blue liquid into a beaker, “with your ugly nerd glasses. Why do you wear those ugly glasses, four-eyes?”

“I need them to _see_ , dickbreath,” Carol snapped. She thought about taking a container of acid and throwing it over him, how his skin would burn, how he might shriek like a little girl. A grim smile spread over her face as she imagined the sizzling of his flesh. But then their teacher wandered over, and it would have been too difficult to make it look an accident. Carol knew they would never give acid that strong to a fourteen year old, anyway.

“How are we doing over here, kids?” She picked up Carol’s beaker and swirled it around. “You should get some nice crystals out of this. Good job, both of you.” The teacher walked away, and Carol’s blood boiled. This was _her_ work, not Tommy’s. Why should he get credit for what she had achieved? She glared at him, watching him chew on the end of the pencil he’d stolen from her, and he gave a slow, lazy grin.

 

 

“I hate that fuckin’ little turd,” Carol growled, slumping into the back seat of her mom’s car, her signature glare scrunching up her features. “Watch your language, Carol,” her mother reprimanded, but she didn’t seem too bothered. Probably because darling Debbie wasn’t around.

“You bitching about Tommy again?” Barb asked, turning around from the front seat to face her. Carol nodded, arms crossed and expression still surly. “You do know why he teases you so much, right?”

“Because his parents don’t love him, so he takes his anger out on other people.”

Barb laughed shortly. “No, shit-for-brains, he has a crush on you.”

Their mother shot Barb a pointed look at the expletive as she started the car. “You know, Carol, your sister might be right. Boys often show affection by being mean to girls that they like.”

“Bullshit,” Carol mumbled, refusing to look at Barb’s smug face, but she thought about Tommy the whole drive home.

 

 

The next day, Carol was silent for the whole of chemistry class. Tommy poked and prodded and teased, and she replied with sweet smiles every time. By halfway through the hour he had stopped his tormenting completely. He even offered to wash up the boiling tubes from that day’s lab work.

As they packed their books away at the end of class, Carol reached out to touch Tommy’s forearm gently. He seemed to jump a foot into the air. “Hey,” she said, sweet smile cloying on her lips, “meet me behind the Drama block in ten minutes.”

Tommy smiled his slow, lazy grin. “Sure thing, Denning.”

And sure enough, as Carol rounded the corner between the sports and drama buildings at the end of the school day, there was Tommy, sucking on a piece of candy. He made eye contact with her and spat the candy out as she approached, and it bounced off the wall and landed by her feet.

“So,” he said.

“So,” Carol returned.

A beat of silence passed between them.

“Why’d you ask me here, then?”

“I think you know,” Carol said, words slow. “A little birdie told me that you like me. That you’ve got a little _crush_ on me.”

Tommy smiled, same as before. “So you finally worked it out, huh. Good job, four-eyes.”

Carol fumed at the name, but kept her fury hidden down low. If this was going to work, she had to at least pretend to like Tommy. No better way to become the head bitch of the school than dating one of the coolest boys around, right?

“Are you gonna kiss me, then?” She asked, bold and bright, to cover up the fear and disgust churning in her gut. Tommy took a few steps closer to her, and she almost wrinkled her nose as she caught a whiff of _unwashed teenage boy_ smell. Tommy put one hand on her shoulder, and the other gripped her hair painfully. He touched his mouth to hers awkwardly, pressed forward for a few seconds then moved away again.

Carol resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Was that really _it_? Her mind flicked back to all the things she’d read in the magazines she stole from Barb. Biting. Biting was sexy, right? Tommy was still pulling her hair, maybe not even realising he was doing it, so she leaned in and kissed him again for a moment, then bared her teeth and bit his bottom lip. Perhaps a little too hard.

Tommy let go of her hair immediately and pushed her back. “What the fuck, Denning?” He brought a hand to his mouth, and his fingers came away spotted with blood. “You fucking freak! I can’t believe I thought you might be cool.” He spat on the ground, saliva pink as it mixed with the blood on his lips. “I’ll make sure to warn everyone else about what a little _psycho_ you are.” Tommy grabbed his backpack off the ground and ran, leaving Carol staring at the ground, emotionless. Biting Tommy had felt nice, but not in a sexy way. Not because she liked him. No, she just liked the taste of his blood and the way he yelped in pain.

 

 

Her first kiss was a blur, but it was good.

Carol didn’t want to go to the school dance. She had only moved to this school a few months ago, and she hadn’t made any friends, just a lot of enemies. But Barb was going with her girl gang, and Debbie had a gymnastics session that was planned to run late, so Carol was bundled into a dress and out of the door and told to “behave, _or else_.”

Seventeen year old Carol didn’t like dresses. She liked oversized men’s shirts, and jeans that she could roll up the hems of to show off her heavy stomping boots. This dress was too long for her, an old one of her sister’s, and it trailed along the ground as she walked. She wore her boots underneath, so no one could see, but she felt a little more like herself as she stomped into the cheaply decorated school gym.

She knew that the punch would be spiked with vodka. It always was. That, and Sammie Rai had whispered it to everyone in third period History last week. Carol had tried alcohol before, taking swigs out of bottles of wine her parents left unattended, and once ‘borrowing’ some whiskey from her dad’s drinks cabinet with Barb. It had left them both choking and gasping as the liquid burned their throats, but afterwards Carol thought that it was a good kind of burn. She could do with some burning tonight.

Slumped in a corner, swallowing her third plastic cup of fruity, artificial tasting drink, Carol realised that her eyes were a little fuzzy. So fuzzy, in fact, and so slow to react to anything, that she didn’t notice the girl who had sat down next to her until she spoke.

“Hey. It’s Carol, right?” Her voice had an accent, a melodic lilt like fruit punch, and Carol knew who she was. The Welsh girl, who was new to the school at the same time she was. They had been introduced, but never made friends, because Carol wasn’t the sort who needed friends. She turned to face her.

“Yeah, I’m Carol.” Her mouth moved strangely, her words stumbling into each other, and the girl laughed.

“I’m Enia. I like your boots, Carol.” Carol looked down and realised that the way she’d been sitting, one leg crossed over the other’s thigh, put her very much not-school-dance-appropriate boots on show to everyone.

“Oh. Thanks,” she mumbled, distracted by the way Enia’s lips had moved as they said her name. Carol. She had always been indifferent to her name, never hated it, never loved it, but the way Enia said it was... mesmerising. Enia nudged Carol’s arm with her own, and it sent shivers up Carol’s back. Good shivers.

“You look like you could use some fun, Carol,” Enia said, and Carol’s brain fixated on her voice, but her eyes ran over Enia’s face, and her body. Her low-cut dress. She was _pretty_. “Want me to show you some fun?” Enia’s tongue slipped quickly out of her mouth to wet her lips, and Carol nodded. “Let’s go.”

Enia took Carol’s hand and pulled her to her feet. They sneaked behind the row of seats and through a door marked ‘DO NOT OPEN’, leading them out into the corridor. “C’mon, this way,” Enia said, still holding her hand, and Carol’s skin tingled with the contact. Enia pushed open the double doors at the end of the corridor and then they were out in the moonlight, empty bike racks spread across the concrete ground and trees whispering in the distance. She pulled Carol to the side and they both leaned against the cool brick wall.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before, Carol?” Enia asked, and her words reverberated inside Carol’s skull. Her brain supplied images of chemistry class, of Tommy Roberts chewing on a pencil, pulling her hair, spitting red on the ground. She wondered, for a moment, what would happen if she lied.

 

“No,” Carol said, and it was the truth.

 

“Would you like to?” Enia whispered, her mouth close, and Carol nodded breathlessly. Their lips met, and Carol’s breath hitched in her throat again as she felt the softness, the gentleness of Enia’s touch. It was intoxicating, and she pressed closer to Enia, mouths seeking each other out in the darkness again and again. Carol gasped as a wet tongue slid across her lips, and Enia licked inside her mouth. She withdrew a little, then leaned in quickly to drag her teeth gently along Enia’s bottom lip. She felt the other girl smile against her mouth.

“You’re pretty good at this, Carol,” Enia said, and leaned in once more. And that is how they stayed, two girls soft and sweet in the darkness, discovering each other for the very first time.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry if this is incoherent i wrote it at 4am ! come find me at carcldenning on tumblr for more gay carol


End file.
